Bandage

Jessa sometimes wears bandages to work, to the grocery store, to her Weight Watchers meetings, to dates.

She almost never needs them, but she likes the look of them. Neat white gauze wrapped around her elbow. A smooth tan bandaid affixed to the heel of her palm. A butterfly closure sitting delicately on her cheekbone.

It's not the attention or sympathy that Jessa likes. Mostly people don't ask; strangers are too polite, and her coworkers have figured out that there are usually no injuries beneath the bandages. And she doesn't wear them to hide, or conceal. What Jessa likes is the ritual.

She dips her fingers into the clean white bowl of cotton balls, separating one piece of fluff from the rest.

Then she pours a little rubbing alcohol onto it, and she loves the feel of the swift coolness spreading through the ball, making it collapse into a soft pad.

She dabs the alcohol onto whatever is being bandaged, smearing a circle of evaporation, breathing the sharp clean vapor.

She either pulls a crisp paper wrapper apart and drops the curls into the trash, watching as they flutter on the way down, or she unwinds a length of gauze with small, deft turns of her wrists.

She places the bandage with care, setting the adhesive firmly against her skin, or tucking the ends of the woven cotton strip neatly under itself.

At the end of the day, the feel of the bandaid peeling slowly off her skin makes her arms and scalp erupt in goosebumps. When she unwraps the gauze from around her wrist, or ankle, or knee, the revealed limb feels small and free.